A LOAD OF OLD BULLETS

I've just watched the 1988 Gary Busey action thriller Bulletproof. Busey plays McBain, a secret agent turned maverick cop. It starts with him breaking up an illegal arms deal. Villain Danny Trejo shouts 'Who the fuck are you?' and McBain shouts back 'I'm your worst nightmare, butthorn!'. Trejo dies in a ball of flame when McBain throws a grenade into the back of the ice cream van the baddies are using as a getaway vehicle.

McBain gets shot in the shoulder during the raid but refuses medical attention, instead going home where a beautiful lady is waiting for him in a bubble bath. He takes a swig of whiskey, then pulls out the bullet with a pair of forceps. He washes the extracted slug and drops it in a jar that has between 10 and 15 other old bullets in it. He then makes love to the beautiful lady and afterwards she says 'You may be bulletproof, McBain, but you're certainly not love-proof'. Oh, and later on there's a flashback where he's playing a sax solo on a beach.

That's all I have to say, really, I just wanted to tell someone.

WE'VE ALL DONE IT

Choreography For Copy Machine AKA Photocopy Cha Cha Cha, d. Chel White (USA, 1991)

Relentless and brilliantly animated, like a jollier version of the unforgettable and disquieting title sequence of The Tomorrow People.

NIGHTMARE FUEL

Menacing children in terrifying costumes take part in occult ritual in the gripping 1971 US TV Movie Black Noon, a horror western in which an idealistic Preacher finds himself at the centre of a Satanic shit show.

AND SIR JOHN GIELGUD...

One of the things I really like about US TV movies of the 1970s (all I watch now, you know) is the eclectic range of actors that appear in them. The slow decline of the Hollywood studio system led to scores of out of contract thespians, many of them quite famous, few of them totally unknown, but most not quite what they once were. 

Not everyone in show business can be a megastar forever, of course, just as not everyone in a hospital can be a surgeon, or everyone in the army can be a hero. It's the natural way of things, and it's often quite arbitrary. TV movies of this era not only provided steady employment for everyone but they threw the star system in the air and totally rearranged it on a weekly basis, as well as providing a quick payday for big names with a few free days and a swimming pool to pay for.

Originally broadcast by the NBC network as a pilot, Probe (1972) is a glossy detective drama with science fiction elements that didn't result in a series. It stars Hugh O'Brian, a big handsome guy (apparently chiselled out of wood) who was most famous for playing Wyatt Earp on TV, but the true attraction is the ensemble cast. 

Amongst others, we have a European sex-symbol (Sommer), a double Oscar nominee (Meredith), a leading man of 1940s b-movies (Smith), the guy who played Davy Jones' Grandad on The Monkees (Wright), and one of Britain's Holy Trinity of 20th century theatrical knights, Sir John Gielgud. Sir John is a hoot throughout and seems to be having the time of his life, doing all sorts of cool stuff, including, at one point, being machine gunned. Good times.

OH, LUMME!

In American TV Movies, nothing says you have arrived in England more than a badly put together sign and a random red bus. Only bettered if paired with a burst of 'Rule Britannia' on the soundtrack. 

From 1974's The Questor Tapes, a Gene Rodenberry production about a super-advanced android and his search for meaning in an incomprehensible world. To his credit, he finds his purpose in about three days, which is 21,013 days ahead of where I am in life - and counting.

INESCAPABLE OBSESSION

I don't want to get into the weeds on this one, but I now only watch American TV Movies from the 1970s, and there's nothing you or anybody else can do about it. 

There are hundreds of these damn things, and all human life is here. Genre themes dominate, particularly horror, espionage, sci fi (in contemporary settings) and natural disasters, lots of them, from fire to floods to avalanches, earthquakes, swarms of killer bees and Bigfoot. They usually run for about 70 minutes and are only now available in faded recordings that are spread across a number of platforms. Very few of them are loved and cared for; only a small proportion achieve genuine greatness or, in some cases, even quite good-ness. However, as we've already established, that's all I watch now, so I'm forced to just make the best of it.

If I were to try and evidence some of the attraction, let me draw your attention to Escape, a Movie Of The Week originally broadcast by the ABC network on April 6th, 1971. It's about an escape artist / private detective / bon viveur / all round good guy called Cameron Steele who battles a badly scarred mad scientist who has developed a virus that will turn humanity into slaves. The Bond-like supervillain operates out of an amusement park, and his secret lair is under the ghost train. The climax of the movie takes place on the roller coaster. It's fantastic, and if you don't want to see it based on that brief description I wash my hands of you.

Star Christopher George is in lots of TV movies (and some entertaining b-pictures). He's believably tough without being macho, charming without being slick, and he keeps on top of things nicely. I'm rather fond of him and his steady presence, and the fact that he didn't speak English until he was 6 (he was born in the USA to  Greek immigrant parents) makes him even more likeable. 

More TV Movies soon. I've told you twice already, that's all I watch now.

THIRSTY WORK

I Drink Your Blood, d. David E. Durston (1970)

When a satanic hippie cult descend on a small town and make a nuisance of themselves, a small boy gives them a tray of meat pies he has injected with the blood of a rabid dog. The consequences of this unusual but totally understandable action (they assaulted the boy's sister and forced his Grandpa to take LSD) are rapid and irrevocable: madness, cannibalism and an orgy of infection and bloody death ensues. It's a terrible film, really, which is why I only ever watch it once or twice a year.

Happy Halloween, people. Trick, treat, eat, drink and be merry - but maybe give the pies a miss, who knows what might be in them?

BRIGHT STAR

 

Fear No Evil, d. Frank LaLoggia (1981)

An atmospheric, slightly hysterical movie teling the hitherto untold tale of the son of the Devil's troubled teenaged years in in the suburban hell of Rochester, New York, Fear No Evil has a great punk / new wave soundtrack, an often unwholesome blend of sex and violence, and a genuinely exciting, partially animated climax in which Lucifer Jr. is destroyed by the coruscating, cleansing light of a processional cross to semi-psychedelic and eye rubbing effect.

RITUALISTIC

Storm de Hirsch (1912-2000) could have been content simply with having one of the greatest names of all time, but she was also a groundbreaking film maker. The screenshots here are from Peyote Queen, the second part of a trilogy called The Color Of Ritual, The Color Of Thought in which she scratches, etches and paints directly onto 16mm film and then adds a kitchen sink load of optical effects to create something wild and weird and psychedelic that reflects her early experience as an abstract-expressionist painter.